Mobile number portability to go live

Govt,under former Telecom Minister A Raja had kept postponing the day of the roll-out,but his successor to the ministership Kapil Sibal has wasted no time in providing this feature to all mobile phone users in the country.

After missing three deadlines,mobile number portability MNP,which allows subscribers to retain numbers even after changing service operators,will be rolled out in November,Telecom Minister A Raja had said.

8220;November 1 onwards,MNP would be operational partially8230; First,we wanted to inaugurate in Haryana,8221; Raja told reporters on the sidelines of an event organised by BSNL last month.

He also said that in the first phase,MNP will be launched in 11 circles and the implementation will begin from the second or third week of November.

Implementation in the eleven circles would be completed by December 20,he said.

Syniverse Technologies,which had been selected by the telecom department as one of the clearing houses for implementing MNP,will manage the first phase of the roll-out. The Department of Telecom had given licences to Syniverse Technologies and MNP Interconnection Telecom Solutions,a 74:26 joint venture between US-based Telcordia and Deepak Talwar Consultants Pvt Ltd,to implement MNP.

However,MNP Interconnection is yet to get security clearance from the government.

MNP will allow users to retain their mobile telephone numbers even if they switch operators.

The service is expected to be rolled out in the rest of the country in phases.

The deadline for roll-out of number portability in the country has already seen three extensions,which has resulted in a delay of almost one year. The last deadline for implementing MNP was October 31,2010.